Charles and Irene Custer— Route 66, 1950

Vaughn · Apr 29, 2020

MattKing said:
I find the contents of the photos wonderful. I'm grateful for the work done in bringing them to our attention.
Is anyone else bothered by the post-processing - how the photos are "re-developed"?
I would love to see some of them printed more traditionally.

I would love to see the prints they sold to the stores, etc. The scanned images are wonderful as historic documents -- and I get about as excited about them as I am about the colorization, etc of the WWI footage...which is to say, not much. I just do not appreciate the "value added" aspect. YMMD...and generally it seems to differ quite a bit.

What I do appreciate is this newly married couple, exploring the West, making money by meeting people, taking very posed images, then developing and printing the images in their motel room (a guess, but probably paid for by the photos sold the day before), making love, selling the prints the next morning, and then on their way to the next adventure. Quite keen....for the rest of their lives, the smell of fixer must have generated miles of memories of the road.

And these photos would be impossible to take here today. One can make similar images, but the attitude towards photography has moved on too far to go back to the way these people responded to the camera and photographers.

Sirius Glass · Apr 29, 2020

Alan Edward Klein said:
I think the content is more important than the reproduction qualities.

Just like Playboy magazine, I look at the photographs and ignore the content.

PittP · May 1, 2020

@ David A.G.: Thank you for sharing, enjoyed both pictures and article.

juan said:
That’s not an “Agfa box camera.” .....It appears they were shot on roll film

You may wish to google for "Agfa Ansco Universal (Junior) 5x7", or
visit the interesting page on Wooden Field Cameras of the United States: 1870's-1930's: http://www.piercevaubel.com/cam/index.htm

Many of the scans show the edges of the fim holder: sheet film.

@ Reproductions/restauration: Apparently a big job done! For my taste, the "restauration" and notably the sharpening got a bit overdone (on my screen...). Well, thus the shapes "hit hte eye".

The good Mr Custer apparently new how to talk people into the pictures, excellent - then, is "talking and convincing" not a lawyer's art?

Pitt

Louis Nargi · May 1, 2020

Amazing brings me back growing up in those years when people were that way.

Lee Rust · May 1, 2020

I don't know... I'll bet if you asked folks today to pose for a big view camera like that, they would be just as engaged and responsive. However, now that we're all so self-aware of our appearance and performance on digital screens, contemporary poses would probably be quite a bit more theatrical.

This is the main reason that I still shoot with film and print pictures out. It's not just for now.... it's for later.

Perhaps a whole lot later. Don't neglect to label your photos with plenty of names, dates and places.

In the distant future, the big negatives or positives that anybody can easily hold up and look at directly will likely attract quite a bit more interest than binders stuffed with page after page of teeny little 35mm frames.

Kodachromeguy · May 1, 2020

Lee Rust said:
.

In the distant future, the big negatives or positives that anybody can easily hold up and look at directly will likely attract quite a bit more interest than binders stuffed with page after page of teeny little 35mm frames.

This will be especially true compared to looking at the contents of Uncle Joe's hard drive with his 107 digital snaps taken machine gun style with his digital wonder machine. Perfect pixels, perfect exposure, perfect equivalence, perfect card slots - and totally forgettable.

Vaughn · May 1, 2020

Lee Rust said:
I don't know... I'll bet if you asked folks today to pose for a big view camera like that, they would be just as engaged and responsive. However, now that we're all so self-aware of our appearance and performance on digital screens, contemporary poses would probably be quite a bit more theatrical.

...
Yes, that would be one of the biggest differences -- present day expectations and being soaked in images of oneself. For most of these folks, this was an unusual experience, outside of school photographs, occasional newspaper photos and weddings -- real big-time commercial photographers! (and both good looking). Get the owner and all the staff out there -- toss in a couple of customers in their best. If any of these businesses are still open, I bet they have a 5x7 on the wall somewhere!

Lee Rust · May 2, 2020

There's certainly quite bit of latter-day digital shadow-lifting in those pictures, but I was wondering how Charles Custer managed to light all those dark interiors so thoroughly. Finally I noticed that in the snapshot he's brandishing a flash powder lamp in his left hand.

Another blast from the past! We've mostly forgotten about such ancient techniques In this age of ISO that's measured in the tens of thousands.

Sirius Glass · May 2, 2020

Flashbulbs

AndyH · May 2, 2020

Sirius Glass said:
Flashbulbs

While the Type 22 packed quite a wallop of light, I've also been wondering about what Charles shot. The depth of field is immense, and the motion is frozen in all. Could he possibly have used flash powder?

Andy

BradS · May 2, 2020

AndyH said:
While the Type 22 packed quite a wallop of light, I've also been wondering about what Charles shot. The depth of field is immense, and the motion is frozen in all. Could he possibly have used flash powder?

Andy

In one of the photos, you see him holding up what looks like a large 'T' - could that be a flash powder contraption?

Vaughn · May 2, 2020

It is a Flash-lamp. Powder set off by a trigger down the handle. Could be that they were just camping it up for the photo and did use flash bulbs, but I still like to think they actually used it for effect.

AndyH · May 2, 2020

Vaughn said:
It is a Flash-lamp. Powder set off by a trigger down the handle. Could be that they were just camping it up for the photo and did use flash bulbs, but I still like to think they actually used it for effect.

I think you're right. That's an awful lot of light for such a small aperture and brief shutter speed. It's what makes these images so spectacular, IMHO.

Andy

jtk · May 5, 2020

Lee Rust said:
I don't know... I'll bet if you asked folks today to pose for a big view camera like that, they would be just as engaged and responsive. However, now that we're all so self-aware of our appearance and performance on digital screens, contemporary poses would probably be quite a bit more theatrical.

This is the main reason that I still shoot with film and print pictures out. It's not just for now.... it's for later.

Perhaps a whole lot later. Don't neglect to label your photos with plenty of names, dates and places.

In the distant future, the big negatives or positives that anybody can easily hold up and look at directly will likely attract quite a bit more interest than binders stuffed with page after page of teeny little 35mm frames.

As we all know, 35mm was mostly phased out with death of Kodachrome.

jtk · May 5, 2020

.
Back in the era of creativity, when photographers were ambitious, i met a couple who flew over rural regions/roads photographing EVERY significant farm home from their Piper Cub.

They's shoot, go away and shoot another region etc.

They'd make little prints for every farm speculatively, visit every one in person without appointment (find the owners, talk agriculture), show little B&Ws and a hand colored 16X20.sample.. (roof, trees, cars, tractors, ponds, fields of flowers etc), make the offer, close the sale (reporedly 80%), deliver the finished print a few weeks later.

Custer couple undoubtedly showed samples to store owners,in advance, got deposits or full price (perhaps from employees too), and everybody was happy. We all know serious photographers doing exactly that today with digital cameras for people who, like everybody today, have digital devices of their own and already have beautiful photos on their websites.

Vaughn · May 5, 2020

AndyH said:
I think you're right. That's an awful lot of light for such a small aperture and brief shutter speed. It's what makes these images so spectacular, IMHO.

Andy

General consensus is flash bulbs and they are powerful little things compared to electronic flashes, but the flash-lamp is a cool idea. Scanners shine in capturing the wisps of silver exposed in the shadows, and I suppose multiple passes are possible if some of those white shirts close to the flash are over-exposed. So while the scanners can pull out everything from the negatives, I'd love to see one of the original prints and see what their tonality was. Working with flash, same film, developer and contact printing paper, they could have great repeatablility, with an occasional mis-adventure to be sure!

mgb74 · May 6, 2020

What I noticed is the racial disparity. Very few black people in the photos and in the few that did have, they were in somewhat servile roles.

Vaughn · May 6, 2020

I met my son at the Spokane Airport when he flew in from Berkeley a year or so ago. The first things he noticed was that everyone was white. It is very different if one is use to a multi-cultural experience. My drives on the western part of Hwy 50 are similar...but the times they are a changing over the 30 or 40 years that I've make journeys on that road. I got a great plate of Mexican food in Austin last April (made for me after they were already closed), after the first place I stopped at, an All-American-western pool hall sort of a place, looked like it was easier to buy speed than food.

jtk · May 7, 2020

mgb74 said:
What I noticed is the racial disparity. Very few black people in the photos and in the few that did have, they were in somewhat servile roles.

NM isn't perfect...but we are well over over 50% "minority"...not even counting native people.. I've never heard any negative comments about black people here...and they certainly weren't considered "servile:"

New Mexicans were hosts, seemingly without thinking about it, for black people fleeing Texas and real enemy, the persistently "Confederate" states We literally waged war against Texas.

Many/most of the retail businesses in NM during the era of those photos were ownes/runned by Jews... that's a big theme here. https://nmjhs.org/ "White people" could as easily be Jewish as Spanish. Photographs are often lies.

Our Buffalo Soldiers often settled here. https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/buffalo-soldiers

I doubt the Custers OR their photo subjects oppressed minorities. using those photos as some sort of negative" evidence is unfortunate, at best.

Charles and Irene Custer— Route 66, 1950

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